I intended to hold tight with the current SFB roster for a couple more sims but two things happened: 1) Las Vegas put half their team on the trade block and let it be known they're open for business, thereby kickstarting the 2063 midseason trade market and 2) Justin brought me an offer I couldn't refuse. At 26-32 and with a negative run differential, it seems like the universe is sending us the sign we were looking for that this year ain't it. We still have a ~4% playoff chance and this trade really shouldn't crush that dream any more than it already is.
Off Topic
Traded 31-year old SP Alexander Swanson and 31-year old CF Sonny Bigalow to the Rosenblatt Bombers, getting 31-year old CF Federico Linares, 21-year old minor league pitcher Iván Soto, and 18-year old minor league pitcher Orlando Hernández in return.
Swanson spent the first 10 seasons of his big league career with San Fernando and is the first top draft pick I successfully made as a GM in the BBA. After returning from a year-long injury he's been on a nice run starting in 2060 of providing about 200 innings and 3 WAR per season as a mid-rotation starter. He peaked at 18th in Ron's starting pitcher rankings and was most recently ranked 28th, a testament to his reliable ability to work deep into ball games. A control specialist who rarely walks opposing hitters, this year Swanson's numbers are mostly consistent with the past except his strikeout rate has dropped off a bit.
We signed Swanson to a sweetheart extension in 2060 that ends after this year's $4M salary. He's currently opening contract negotiations at six years and $43M and while I'm sure he'll end up signing with Rosenblatt for half of that, we're wary of locking up a 30-something middling arm while undergoing a small rebuild. He might've been eligible for compensation, so it was important any trade return we take exceed the value of a late second round pick. This way we avoid the risk of him getting injured, and honestly I'm excited to see what some of my AAA scrubs can do. Our AAA club has had a lot of success in recent years with veteran pitching staffs because we haven't had many pitching prospects. I'm thinking the gap between the recently called up Xavier Vargas and Swanson is relatively small.
It took a bevy of young arms to pry Bigalow away from Des Moines in 2058 but we desperately needed stability in center field and that's what Bigalow provided over the last five years. The power in his bat waned over time, but thanks to defense that actually improved and his patient eye he consistently gave the Bears 2 to 2.5 WAR.
There's one more year remaining on Bigalow's contract for $6M and at -0.9 WAR in 2063 his days of being an average center fielder are probably over. The 31 year-old will still get plenty of gigs as long as he possesses elite outfield range but he'll need BABIP luck to be a net contributor offensively. Center field in San Fernando is now firmly in Jim Sitton's hands.
The Linares story is similar to Bigalow's. The 31 year-old outfielder isn't the player he was in his prime and he still has an $8M payday coming his way next season. I mostly view the two as a wash--Linares is the slightly better player in a vacuum (like OVR rating) but Bigalow's defense is more useful for a role player. Linares adds $2M to the 2064 payroll but the savings on Swanson's contract and the fact Linares is a fan favorite should net that out. With Sitton in center field, 'Kiki' is a better fit than Bigalow as a short-side platoon corner.
A fourth round pick in this year's draft, Soto looks like a decent representation of what we could have reasonably expected from a type B comp pick for Swanson. He featured prominently on our draft list around that time so his scouting report is already familiar to us. The 21 year-old's ceiling is low but he's also mostly developed. The remaining potential from his individual pitches gives us hope there is another point that could bump somewhere, but we're simply excited at the possibility of having a young back-end option after not graduating a starting pitching prospect since Jerry Richards.
El Duque is our high ceiling prospect in this trade. He and Soto were ranked 15th and 16th, respectively, in Rosenblatt's deep, talented farm system and represent our current strategy of trying to accumulate as many decent arms as we can after getting very position player heavy prospect-wise. Hernandez was a third round pick in the 2062 draft and despite being only 18 years old is holding his own in full season A ball. Scouts give him a good fastball and changeup along with a plus-plus splitter long-term. There are concerns the changeup will never develop, but armed with the other two pitches he'll be a fine middle reliever.